A Beauty So Deep

I am divine as I dance, a fine silhouette against the moon. My feet swaying with the wildflowers that blow in the wind. My dress billowing about my legs. I dip down picking up the flowers, then rise up sacrificing them to the wind, hoping that the rush-witch may emerge from the swamp nearby.

“Such a display deserves a reward,” a gnarly voice says.

My heartbeat rises as I am startled from my dancing. I stare at the woman before me, wondering why she would ever grant the wish I hope to ask. The rush-witch is very old, centuries-old, the creases of her face grow saplings, bull-rushes spring from her mossy hair, and her knuckles are the knots of trees. I’m sure she’ll find me shallow and self-centred.

“Please,” I say, “don’t be offended. My name is Ayla. I’m here because I never want to age, I want to be beautiful for the rest of my life.”

I cower from her, fearing her response. I hope that she won’t turn me to a toad. I’d heard of witches casting curses on those who displease them. Yet the rush-witch doesn’t seem to care.

“Life is beautiful. What you want is driven by perception.”

“Beauty is beauty. You speak nonsense.”

The witch smiles, showing hollow teeth. “Am I not beautiful?”

I’m sure she jokes, but there is a look in her eye that tells me that she doesn’t. If she thinks she knows something that I do not, she is horribly misled. There is not a beautiful thing about the creature before me, beyond the fact that her bizarre look could draw attention through its absurdity alone. I do not answer, because I am sure that whatever I say she will not like.

“This must be important to you,” the witch says. “Oh, my poor lost soul. There is a price to any spell though. I can make you ageless, more beautiful than you even are now, but you will be five inches tall.”

I wonder what it would be like to be five inches tall. I’m sure there would be challenges, but everyone faces challenges. I imagine my dolls back home, their pretty porcelain faces, never changing as long as they are treated properly. I’d always longed to be like them, never so literally as to be their size too, but I’d be okay with that.

The witch is surprised by how willingly I respond. I imagine riding on birds and exploring the world, the wind whistling through my hair. I’d be a mystical princess, yet not vile like the faeries are. I’d be the most beautiful, and have the kindest heart of all of those my size. I’d be a sought after attraction. I’d have to be careful to avoid becoming a dancer in a glass cage. But would that really be so bad? My loveliness would be admired by people from all over the world.

“One day you may wish to find love,” the witch interrupts my fantasizing.

“I do not need to find love. I could never love anyone more than my beauty.”

“What if you fall in love?” The witch asks, knitting her spindly fingers together. “Love is a beautiful thing, more beautiful than you.”

“I have my doubts.”

I wonder how the rush-witch can be so entranced by love. With her looks, I doubt that the witch ever found it. I imagine kissing her, cringing at the thought of bull-rushes scratching against my delicate cheeks. Who would want such an experience?

“Now what age would you like to be?” The witch asks.

“The age I am now?”

“But you’re barely a woman.”

“I’m nineteen,” I say offended. I’d seen too many twenty-year-olds with hollow overworked eyes, complaining about lost time, and aching bones, to ever want to be like them.

“Well, I guess that must be woman enough for you,” the witch says. I can almost swear that she rolls her eyes.

Offended, I say, “I’ve thought of this for years.”

“Even as a blabbering baby?” the witch asks. “Babies are cute, can I make you one of them.”

“No, but my mother called me a beautiful baby, so I likely did think of it then too.”

“If you were beautiful then, and you’re beautiful now, what says you won’t be beautiful fifty years down the road.”

“If you cannot do it, I will call a different witch,” I say, turning away. I am fed-up with her jesting. I cannot cope with others who do not understand me. As I walk away, suddenly my dress piles up around me, so that I can barely breathe. I struggle to emerge from the pile. I look up, the witch now a giant to me.

“Never say I can’t do something,” the witch says. She retreats back into the swamp, leaving me alone. I’m suddenly a tiny morsel in a very large world.

For nine years I bask in the glory of my lasting youth. I travel by bird exploring the world, loving the feel of the wind in my hair. I become a collector of fine things, putting lost gems together into beautiful crowns, gathering bits of expensive fabric left by tailors, and finding beauty inspirations from cultures I’d never have known were it not for my flights.

I gather my treasures in an abandoned mouse-hole behind a piano in an inn. I keep a low profile because my size is something feared. Those who see me, react immediately, usually with a raised foot or hand. Their instincts do not allow them time to pause and realize that I am not a faery or a diseased rodent. Sometimes I wonder what the benefit of being beautiful is if nobody sees me, but when I see my reflection I am content alone.

Most evenings after the bar closes I search the wood floor for items left behind by guests. Tonight I find a locket. I sling the chain over my shoulder to bring it back to my home. Normally the items I find are so light that I can just scurry across the floor, but this locket weighs me down. I struggle to avoid detection by the innkeepers, a couple of fauns, who in their rush to get the bar cleaned so they can have some time to themselves, fail to watch where they step with their hooves. I narrowly miss being crushed twice. Once I’ve dragged the locket inside, I light several tiny candles that I’d built from stolen bits of candle-wax. I then try to open the locket, hoping to find a mirror, but I am not strong enough to get the clasp to undo.

“Pity,” I sigh. “It would have been a grand mirror.”

I lean the locket against the wall, then run my hand across the locket’s surface, admiring the golden flowers that raise up from the silver. Inspired, I gracefully walk to my matchbox where I keep my things. I pull out a floral gold earring and weave it into my hair.

From above me, I hear the innkeepers put on some music. I cannot hear the music entirely, but the innkeeper’s hoofbeats create a rhythm that is easy to follow, and their voices rise loud enough in song that I can dance to the sound in the candlelight. I twirl, and twirl, feeling absolutely serene. I spin until the music stops, and I collapse dizzily on the floor. My spinning makes me think of a set of musical dolls I once saw on one of my adventures. I’d found them very pretty, the male especially with his handsome face and dark grey eyes. I wish I could have been dancing with him. I wish that his tiny hands could grasp my waist and lift me in the air like I see the men do to their lovers in the inn. I cry, longing to kiss his lovely porcelain lips.

I wake to the sound of a pleading voice, crying out for help. I realize that I had cried until I’d fallen asleep on the floor. Getting up, I walk to the end of the piano to see what the issue is.

I see the innkeeper Rosalind, worrying a washcloth between her sturdy fingers while talking to a grieving woman. The woman’s face is shrouded by a netted black cloth that I find pretty. Yet despite the woman’s netted hat and lovely black dress, the rest of her is simplistic as if she does not care about beauty. Her effortlessness makes me jealous. How could someone look so beautiful with so little extravagance?

“I’ve lost my locket.” The woman says.

“I’ve not seen it,” Rosalind answers, running her hand through her curly dark hair. “Are you sure you had it here.”

“I did, I am positive.”

“Maybe a pickpocket?” Rosalind asks.

“It was on my neck.”

Guilt wrenches my heart. Many of the things I find are usually items that would have been lost in the cracks of the floorboards for eternity. The locket was a large find, large enough that I feel as if I’d taken it. Guiltily, I return home and pull the chain over my shoulder, and pull it along the wall behind the piano.

“What makes it so special?” Rosalind asks.

Emerging from my safe zone, I’m glad that the three of us are the only ones in the bar. Since they stand still, I’m unlikely to be stepped on. As I labour beneath the weight of the locket, I listen to them talk.

“It has a photo of my late husband,” the widow says. “He was lost to the accident at the mill.”

I see now that beneath the widow’s eyes are dark bags of grief. How hadn’t I noticed that before? Is she so beautiful that her faults can go unnoticed? My jealousy climbs.

“What a tragedy?” Rosalind says.

“It is my only photo of him.”

“I really hope you find it.”

“It is found,” I shout, panting beneath the weight of the chain. Sweat drips from my forehead. They look confused, making me have to call again. “Down here!”

The widow glances down, squealing. I feel like a mess of sweat, and wild hair, but I know immediately that she’s not going to notice. My height is too much of a distraction from my faults.

Rosalind peers over the counter. I’m amazed by how calm she is. She even laughs at the sight of me. “Now that explains some things.”

“Explains?” I ask. The widow’s squealing does not bother me, but Rosalind’s laughter does. I had never been laughed at for years.

“Funny little things going missing,” Rosalind answers, “like wax scooped off of ends of candles, and bits of thread I’d saved, I should have known I’d got a faery.”

“I’m not a faery,” I say. “They’re evil things.”

“Oh, are you now?” Rosalind challenges. “You look like a faery to me.”

“Well, whatever she is, she has my locket.” The widow says. She leans down towards me. Before I can run away, I am picked up with the locket. I struggle to get free, but the widow’s long fingers grasp me tightly. The widow sets me on the counter. My feet stick to the bar. Years of spilt alcohol had made the counter permanently sticky.

“She’s darling isn’t she,” Rosalind coos.

“Pretty yes,” the widow says, “darling only if she isn’t a little thief.”

“I don’t steal I find,” I say, pushing the locket towards the widow. “See. I want you to have it back because it is yours.”

“My husband better be inside,” the widow says, picking up the locket and opening it up with such ease that I am envious. The widow holds the locket out for Rosalind to see, but I see too. Inside is a black and white photo of a very handsome young man. I wish I could bring life to the man in the photo, but I’m unsure if I’d want to give him back to the widow.

“He’s so handsome,” I say, without thinking.

“His heart is worth much more,” the widow weeps.

Though I feel pity for the grieving widow, I also feel a sense of jealousy. I’m surprised by how curious I am about the widow’s pain. If only I could change places for a day, to see how that love would feel. Then maybe my longing for company would subside, and I could continue life as normal. Why do I want love when it can cause so much sadness?

Rosalind and I quickly become friends. I appreciate how she treats me as an equal despite our differences in height. She even introduces me to her husband, who I find homely yet kind. He’s so sweet that he makes up for his appearance. Sometimes I even forget that he’s ugly, enjoying his advice and his inventions too much. He sets up contraptions around the bar, in order to make climbing easier for me. They also begin to find me pretty doll furniture and clothes, making me feel like a spoilt child. Although they do not mean to treat me like a pet, I feel like one, so I begin to make myself useful around the inn. Dusting places that Rosalind finds hard to reach, and retrieving dropped items from under the counter. I become so busy that I forget about love.

My favourite times are in the evenings after the inn closes. Rosalind and I sit with tea, gossiping about the patrons of the inn. Sometimes Rosalind teases me, trying to matchmake, but I feel no desire. Many visitors are basic and predictable. They often win or lose the hearts of different lovers with the same tactics. Sometimes I find an uncanny amount of pleasure in watching heartbreaks unfold. There is one regular heartbreaker in the bar, a man always gorgeously dressed with a face so beautiful that I’m sure he’s an angel. For a while I have a small crush, hoping that he could gift me such an effortless beauty, so I could be my old size. But it becomes clear that his tastes aren’t human. He’d have many admirers, but only those with horns, hooves, or tails ever caught his interest. I almost left my hiding spot to tell a woman that her efforts would never win his heart unless she unveiled the tail she had hidden in the lacing of her gown.

For weeks I am content, no longer feeling the need to be big again. My friendship fills me with warmth, and I’m positive that a friend was all I needed. But one evening a new voice enters the bar.

Timid, I sit behind the piano against the wall, listening to the stories this voice weaves. He speaks of daring adventures with such detail and humour that I am entranced. He currently talks about chasing after a thief to retrieve an ornate cloth stolen from a shopkeeper. I expect that he must dress finely since he clearly could see the value in the cloth. I’m engrossed by his words and imagine that this travelling sailor must be dashingly handsome, with soft skin and sweeping hair.

His voice the only sound in the bar, my newfound muse continues his story, “But when I went to return the cloth. I was mistaken for the robber and apprehended by the village guards. I was jailed, and from the other captives I soon learned that a thief loses a hand. I wasn’t going to let that happen, so when the guards came to take me to trial, I kicked one so hard in the sack that he keeled over. I then kneed him in the ass, making him fall into the other guard. I made my run then, soon disappearing into the crowds of the village. My hands of course were chained behind my back, and I never got them untied until I’d made my way back to my crew. Taking a piss was damn hard.”

It must have been terrible for him in prison, the other occupants drooling over his exquisite clothes and his dashing body. I cannot stand another moment without having a glimpse of this cunning adventurer, so I walk to the edge of the piano.

I drawback in surprise. He is not what I expected. He wears a long leather frock coat worn down by time. He has a galant posture, that could make him dashing, but he does not seem to care an ounce about his presentation. He’s also older than I’d thought, early forties, creases already beginning to develop along the edges of his eyes, his skin rough from exposure to the sun. Yet at sight of him, my heart still flutters. I struggle to determine why. Perhaps it is the hope that he has fine treasures hidden away from his travels, but the idea of treasure excites me half as much as he does.

I remain drawn to him, even though if I’d found a locket with a photo of him, I’d have no hesitancy giving it back. I soon discover that his name is Caspian, but often he is called Cas. He’d decided to winter in my fishing village, finding the seasonal storms to be too dangerous for his schooner and crew. His rationale pleases me, as at my size I’d quickly began to appreciate the comfort of safety. His caution also allows me more time to observe him.

Weeks pass, and I continue to listen attentively to his travels. Sometimes his accounts bring up memories from my own trips, while others give me a glimpse into adventures yet to come. He even talks of encounters with faeries. I listen hard, hoping that he might speak of a sweet one, but he never does. His worst encounter was one where he’d lost a rigged bet. It would have cost him his life, but he managed to escape the faeries by grabbing an iron fire poker and fighting them off. It is the first story he tells where I can sense fear in his voice.

Bursting with admiration, but unable to get the courage to tell him. I tell Rosalind about my crush. At first, she thinks I’m joking, saying that she likes him too because of the way he keeps her patrons longer with his stories, but then she sees the redness in my cheeks and realizes that I am truly in love.

“But you’re lucky if you’re twenty,” Rosalind protests. “I’d say he’s about forty.”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“But you look…”

“I’m small because I went to a witch to trade my height for agelessness and beauty.”

Rosalind is silent for a moment. I’m sure she’s criticizing me for my obsession. She sighs grimly, and I’m sure she’s about to give me a lecture, but all she says is that he’s not my type.

“What makes you say so,” I ask.

“You like prettier things. You turn your nose up to even the most handsome young men who visit this bar.”

“But you’re not saying we couldn’t be a pair. We have lots in common. I love travelling, he does too. I love stories, he loves telling them. I love music, he loves to play it.”

“Perhaps, but it is also not normal for a girl of your size to go after a man of six feet.”

“I wonder if I could go back to the witch and get my height back.”

“He might not give you any attention,” Rosalind warns.

“But I’d make a lovely travelling companion,” I argue. Knowing that Rosalind would not be able to deny that.

“Or he could leave with someone else in the bar.”

“I’ve not seen anyone pique his interest yet.”

“Or perhaps he’s married.”

My heart beats in horror. Could he be claimed? I’d never seen him wear a wedding band, but there is so much caution in these parts because of the pickpockets that he might choose to not wear one. I’d also never seen anyone accompany him into the bar. Perhaps his relationship is a mess, and he needs to be freed. I decide that freeing him will be my duty if he is married.

“Could you ask him?” I plea, though I do not care. “Tell him you have a friend who’d like to know.”

“I could,” Rosalind laughs, “but being free doesn’t mean he can be taken.”

I struggle to understand. How could a match so perfect be so fragile?

Though I begged and begged, I hadn’t thought that Rosalind would actually ask Caspian for me. Worse still, she made me ride in her apron pocket when she went to talk to him. He asked why I didn’t ask him myself. Of course, Rosalind, knowing I was listening, told him I was conscientious about my height. He answered that he’d seen so much diversity in his travels that he cared not if I was tall or short. If only he knew! Worse still, he told her that I could sit with him at the piano tonight, mainly because he’d scare me off by talking too much if we sat together at a table. Rosalind failed to make any smart excuse for me because she was too amused by his main insecurity being my main attraction.

With a lack of confidence, I sit on my doll couch inside my home listening to Caspian play piano. With all my heart I want to reveal myself to him, but I fear his reaction. If I scared him enough, he could be the death of me.

But as I listen to the melody that floods through my home, it dawns on me that Caspian is not the type to be afraid. No, he’s strong, powerful, heroic. He wouldn’t cower at the sight of me. Gathering up my courage I leave to climb the piano.

To my dismay, I discover that the piano hadn’t been modified for me yet. I’d forgotten how difficult it was to get around before Rosalind and I met. I have to climb the leg of the piano like a child shimmering up a branchless tree. When I reach the top, I am so exhausted that I tumble forward off the ledge and onto the highest pitch key. The key tings, and I am revealed before I am ready.

Though Cas is mid-song he is too tuned to not notice me. Startled, he misses a beat but returns to playing. I watch as his graceful hands start to tremble. He doesn’t look at me but instead focusses on the keys. He speaks softly, his voice barely audible above the music.

“Why did they have to send someone so beautiful to kill me?”

I lose control of my tongue and I cannot answer. I don’t know why he thinks I want to kill him, but he called me beautiful.

“When did you poison my whisky?”

“No, I did not,” I manage to say, my heart thumping in panic as I remember his story about the faeries.

“Then I must go,” Cas says, reaching for the fall-board of the piano.

I jump from the keys and onto the seat, narrowly avoiding being enclosed. I realize, that he is truly afraid of me.

The dancers stop mid-swing. Embarrassed I leap from the bench, grabbing the seat’s leg and sliding down it like a bannister. I run back behind the piano before anyone else can see me. From there I listen to see what he says next, my heart pattering like a rat’s. In many ways, I feel as if I am a rodent, timid, fearful and ugly. I’d never thought of myself like that before.

“What happened?” Someone asks, amazed by the absence of music.

“An old enemy has returned,” Caspian answers. “I sail tomorrow.”

Heartbroken, I run to the end of the piano and watch as he leaves. I’m saddened, knowing that he could understand all the driving forces of my heart and soul, but never got the opportunity to because of my own vanity. We could have explored together until our dying day. Unlike faery tale lovers we would have never settled down, but we would have been happy. I feel void without such a connection.

I contemplate going to the witch. I contemplate being big again. But beauty rules my soul. It rules me so heavily that the mere thought of no longer being this dainty being makes me sob.

But then I remember the storms that rage in the winter. I picture Caspian’s ship, being twisted up in the waves of the sea, his body engulfed by the ocean. I could be the death of him. I remember the widow and I’m reminded of the grief of heartbreak. Would I feel as bad, if he were to die for the sake of my vanity?

So I decide to go to the rush-witch. Outside, I lure a dove with birdseed that I keep for travel. I climb on its back and push the poor thing through heavy sleet. By the time I reach the marshes, I’m soaked to the bone. If it were not for the warmth of the bird’s feathers, I would be frozen to the bone. With no chance at calling the witch through dance, I climb a bullrush, and from the top of it, I sing.

To the raging sea, he sails,

To the raging sea.

And at the raging sea, he dies.

If you don’t answer me.

And the rush-witch answers. She emerges from her mossy lair, reeds sticking to her hair. She wears a heavy fur coat over her ragged dress. Somehow, the coat never seems to get wet, though she stands in a marsh, with sleet beating down on her.

“I recognize you,” the rush-witch says, studying me with wrinkled eyes. “I take it you have found love.”

“I have frightened love.”

“I warned you,” the witch says.

“And I listen to your warning now.”

“That is not how warnings work.”

I shiver as I speak, “He sails tomorrow, likely to his death. He’d lost a bet to faeries, and thought I’d come to take his life.”

“And you think that turning back to your normal size and talking to him will persuade him to change his mind.”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” the witch sighs. “I guess you couldn’t send someone else. He’d fear that the faeries had tricked them.” The witch squints, studying me closely. “I think he’ll recognize you. You’ll certainly look a bit older, but not so much that he’d fail to make the connection.” The witch begins to circle me, making the bullrush beneath me rock violently. “And I see I added a few enhancements, but nothing too extreme. Now as much as I value life over your vanity, this is irreversible. The same spell cannot be cast twice on a human.”

“Do it,” I plead.

The bullrush collapses beneath my weight. The murky water splashes against my naked body. I scream as my feet sink into the mud. Grabbing onto the reeds I pull myself out of the frigid water. I drip mud as I standup.

“Oh my,” the witch says. “You cannot go to him looking like that.”

She disappears into her lair. I wait for her to return hoping that she’ll come with a beautiful gown and magic to clean me up, but instead she comes back with a stained sheet for me to dry off with, a woollen brown dress and black leggings.

I grab for the blanket and dry off as best as I can.

“This will match the colour of your eyes.” The witch says, handing me the dress.

The dress is simple, even Caspian wouldn’t be seen in something so boring. I pull it over my body, already feeling the itch of the wool. A little big for me the dress sags around my arms. I feel like a child playing dress-up.

“Beautiful,” the witch says. “Now you must hurry if you are to reach your lover in time.”

I look down at my mud covered bare feet. I wish for shoes, but seeing the witch’s knobby toes also in the mud, I decide that there is no point in asking. I leave, feeling not that much different from the hag.

I pad timidly across the stone sidewalk, fearing that I might damage my feet on broken glass or nails. I am thankful for the sun, which had taken the place of the sleet, but not much else pleases me. I can see the docks ahead, and a schooner with an early start already off in the distant ocean. All I can do is hope that the boat is not Caspian’s.

As I approach the docks, I pass a damaged mirror that leans against a wall. In front of it, I pause, horrified by my ropey damp hair. I find my eyes too dull, and my lips too low. There is a mark on my cheek that wasn’t there before. I try to rub it off, but it is part of me. Observing my new height, I decide that my legs are too short for the length of my torso. I’m troubled by the broadness of my shoulders, and disheartened by the size of my breasts. For a moment I wonder why I think so foolishly. Why should I judge myself now? Perhaps I was the picture of beauty while I was small, but at least now I won’t be mistaken as a faery. I wish the creatures weren’t so vile, otherwise, I could have lost my heart to one of them and lived the rest of my life as a beauty.

The only thing willing me to draw away from the mirror is Caspian.

I search the docks. As I walk my feet are frigid against the icy wet wood. I’m frustrated by the number of fishing ships I see. I expect to find Caspian in a sea voyager. Something not fancy, but large and fast enough to be a decent means of travel. As I pass more and more ships that can’t possibly be his, I grow frantic. I pick up my pace, so focused on the ships on the deck that I fail to watch where I walk. I bump right into a man, who is pulling at the ropes that dock his schooner. The schooner does not have the grime of a ship used primarily for fishing, but it isn’t very immaculate either. It is the kind of boat used for adventure and not just occasional pleasure cruises. My heart starts to race when I realize who I just walked into.

Caspian rises quickly, pulling away from me. He pats his pockets as he searches me with his eyes. “Away from me,” he says.

“I am here to help,” I cry out. Realizing that I’d been mistaken for a pickpocket. “It was not a faery you saw, but me.”

“What in the devil’s name! Do you shrink at night? Some sort of witchy curse?”

“No,” I say, embarrassed by my vanity. “I traded my height for beauty. It was a blessing for a while. I did lots of travelling by bird. I decided to settle at the inn for a few months of rest. I do not show myself to many, and my heart rarely longs for the attention of others, but when you came…”

“You are so young.”

“I’m twenty-eight.” I plead. “Look at me. The girl you saw in the bar was all but a mask. I didn’t want to get old.”

“And yet you want this old thing.” A smile creeps across Caspian’s face, and I feel all warm inside. “Not that I’m old.”

“I have seen no man rival you in humour, adventure and story. Those are things I love.”

“I do like the story of meeting you,” Caspian says, brushing a finger across my cheek. His face pales. “I’ve had run-ins with witches before too. I know how their magic works. You decided to age, so you could be with me.”

“Save you,” I say, stopping his hand by grasping it in mine. “You’d have sailed to your death in these winter storms to escape me. I rode a bird through the sleet last night to plead to the brush-witch to reverse her spell. And then I walked here, barefoot on the ice.”

“Then you need not walk any further,” Caspian says, scooping me up into his arms. “Or at least until we find you some boots. It seems like I have nowhere to be now, and it is too early for ale at an inn, so a coffee at the dockside should do.”

“But…but my beauty…” I say.

“What is there to hate?”